Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1996, page 47
availability of the social role and an environment that provides acceptance for such
behavior. Similarly, Sarbin (1995) sees multiple personality as role enactment involving
believed-in imaginings and self-deception.
It is difficult to conceptualize MPD without accepting the common elements of the positions
noted above. Certainly, standard models of autobiographical memory are entirely
inconsistent with more simplistic models of MPD that involve a series of traumatized selves
and quickly alternating fugues. As noted above, true psychogenic amnesia remains a rare
condition lengthy fugue states are still rarer. In MPD, we supposedly have quickly
alternating fugue states that come and go on request, as well as a variety of different
psychogenic amnesias, such that A knows what B knows but not what C knows, while D is
unknown to A, B, and C, but knows all about them. It is as if we were being told of people
who routinely run 3-minute miles and jump 15 vertical feet. The human organism is not
built that way. Consider the mutable nature of the disorder, its geographic distribution, the
difficulty of finding the syndrome among children, and the way it contradicts our
understanding of memory. In light of these factors, the belief that MPD symptoms are
purely the product of defensive dissociative states, rather than a social role legitimized by
the media and therapists, seems naïve.
Another factor should be considered. Most MPD patients also satisfy the diagnostic criteria
for borderline personality disorder. Although it is clear that some multiples are not
borderlines, estimates of comorbidity have ranged from over 60% (Horevitz &Braun, 1984)
to over 90% (Putnam, 1989). Clinically, patients with borderline personality disorder may
be expected to enthusiastically embrace any role that is sufficiently melodramatic and
provides enough attention and activity for them to avoid feeling the chronic emptiness
endemic to the condition.5
Narrative Truth, Historical Truth, and Therapeutic Hypnosis
We have focused on the hidden presentation of ICA (Gelinas, 1983) because it
demonstrates the dangers present when therapeutic hypnosis is considered a source of
veridical information (and because it was Ms. Borawick‟s claim). Information obtained in
psychotherapy is often true in a symbolic sense, not a literal one. The person who is age
regressed to his or her 4-year-old birthday party may vividly reexperience a conversation
with Aunt Jane. The conversation may have occurred at another birthday party, with
another relative, or not at all. In psychotherapy, it does not matter. The content and nature
of the interaction are the critical factors because they may provide insight into how the
patient thinks and feels. However, they do not tell us what happened historically or legally
on the patient‟s fourth birthday.7
In recent years, scholars of psychotherapy have increasingly described historical
reconstruction during psychotherapy in terms of the creation of a fictive narrative (Spence,
1982, 1994). This view gave rise to hermeneutic interpretation of autobiographical
information obtained in psychotherapy. The narrative is treated as you would treat a literary
text in which you wish to discover meaning (cf. Woolfolk, Sass, &Messer, 1988). The notion
that any procedure used in psychotherapy will routinely elicit reliable history is contradicted
by the work of both early pioneers and modern investigators. Adding hypnosis to
psychotherapy inevitably has the same effects that occur when hypnosis is used to influence
memory retrieval in any other context. Hypnosis increases productivity, certainty, and
believability without a corresponding increment in historically correct information.
There are rare instances in which hypnosis may stimulate the return of historically accurate
memory that has been blocked for emotional reasons (cf. Raginsky, 1969). Given what we
know about memory for stressful events, true psychogenic amnesia can be expected to be
very rare. In more than 20 years of practice and research, the first author has encountered
one case that seems to involve true psychogenic amnesia. In more than 30 years of practice
availability of the social role and an environment that provides acceptance for such
behavior. Similarly, Sarbin (1995) sees multiple personality as role enactment involving
believed-in imaginings and self-deception.
It is difficult to conceptualize MPD without accepting the common elements of the positions
noted above. Certainly, standard models of autobiographical memory are entirely
inconsistent with more simplistic models of MPD that involve a series of traumatized selves
and quickly alternating fugues. As noted above, true psychogenic amnesia remains a rare
condition lengthy fugue states are still rarer. In MPD, we supposedly have quickly
alternating fugue states that come and go on request, as well as a variety of different
psychogenic amnesias, such that A knows what B knows but not what C knows, while D is
unknown to A, B, and C, but knows all about them. It is as if we were being told of people
who routinely run 3-minute miles and jump 15 vertical feet. The human organism is not
built that way. Consider the mutable nature of the disorder, its geographic distribution, the
difficulty of finding the syndrome among children, and the way it contradicts our
understanding of memory. In light of these factors, the belief that MPD symptoms are
purely the product of defensive dissociative states, rather than a social role legitimized by
the media and therapists, seems naïve.
Another factor should be considered. Most MPD patients also satisfy the diagnostic criteria
for borderline personality disorder. Although it is clear that some multiples are not
borderlines, estimates of comorbidity have ranged from over 60% (Horevitz &Braun, 1984)
to over 90% (Putnam, 1989). Clinically, patients with borderline personality disorder may
be expected to enthusiastically embrace any role that is sufficiently melodramatic and
provides enough attention and activity for them to avoid feeling the chronic emptiness
endemic to the condition.5
Narrative Truth, Historical Truth, and Therapeutic Hypnosis
We have focused on the hidden presentation of ICA (Gelinas, 1983) because it
demonstrates the dangers present when therapeutic hypnosis is considered a source of
veridical information (and because it was Ms. Borawick‟s claim). Information obtained in
psychotherapy is often true in a symbolic sense, not a literal one. The person who is age
regressed to his or her 4-year-old birthday party may vividly reexperience a conversation
with Aunt Jane. The conversation may have occurred at another birthday party, with
another relative, or not at all. In psychotherapy, it does not matter. The content and nature
of the interaction are the critical factors because they may provide insight into how the
patient thinks and feels. However, they do not tell us what happened historically or legally
on the patient‟s fourth birthday.7
In recent years, scholars of psychotherapy have increasingly described historical
reconstruction during psychotherapy in terms of the creation of a fictive narrative (Spence,
1982, 1994). This view gave rise to hermeneutic interpretation of autobiographical
information obtained in psychotherapy. The narrative is treated as you would treat a literary
text in which you wish to discover meaning (cf. Woolfolk, Sass, &Messer, 1988). The notion
that any procedure used in psychotherapy will routinely elicit reliable history is contradicted
by the work of both early pioneers and modern investigators. Adding hypnosis to
psychotherapy inevitably has the same effects that occur when hypnosis is used to influence
memory retrieval in any other context. Hypnosis increases productivity, certainty, and
believability without a corresponding increment in historically correct information.
There are rare instances in which hypnosis may stimulate the return of historically accurate
memory that has been blocked for emotional reasons (cf. Raginsky, 1969). Given what we
know about memory for stressful events, true psychogenic amnesia can be expected to be
very rare. In more than 20 years of practice and research, the first author has encountered
one case that seems to involve true psychogenic amnesia. In more than 30 years of practice
